


The Past Is a Story We Tell Ourselves

by celeste9



Category: Star Wars (Marvel Comics), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Poe Dameron (Comics)
Genre: Banter, Dysfunctional Family, Established Relationship, Extra Treat, F/M, Family Drama, Father-Daughter Relationship, Rey Terex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-07 00:30:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15897234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celeste9/pseuds/celeste9
Summary: For as much time as Rey had spent on Jakku waiting for her family, she could honestly say she wasn't expecting to return there on a mission for General Organa and find herself faced with her father.The fact that her father was the ex-stormtrooper and criminal Terex was just a bonus.





	The Past Is a Story We Tell Ourselves

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kylohen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kylohen/gifts).



> The title comes from the movie 'Her'.

“It’s strange,” Rey said, stepping across the shifting sand, the late morning heat stretching into early afternoon scorching, “that I spent so long waiting here, and now I can’t believe I ever came back.”

“It is a shit hole,” Poe pointed out, and Rey smacked him. “No offense! But it is. Almost dying here was enough for me. I hope Leia appreciates this.”

“She will if we’re successful.”

“Good thing I’m always successful, then, huh?” Poe’s grin only stretched further when Rey rolled her eyes.

The truth was, she was glad Poe was here. Jakku held no good memories for her, unless it was meeting Finn, and even that, in the moment, had been mostly distrust, irritation, and anger, bleeding into danger and fear and running for her life. The fondness came only with retrospect because she could no longer imagine her life had she not met him.

She didn’t actually want to be in Niima Outpost on her way to the ships’ graveyard for one last scavenge, but when General Leia Organa gave you a mission, you didn’t turn her down.

Poe, mostly in spite of his big mouth, did actually make for a good partner, in more ways than one.

(Okay, sometimes she appreciated his mouth. Not that he needed to know that.)

Unkar Plutt may, at some point, have been less happy to see someone than he was when Rey appeared at his stall, but she doubted it. It took a squeeze of her fist and the tightening of his airway but he let her borrow a speeder for a very good price: no price at all.

Poe watched and said nothing. Rey couldn’t tell at all what he was thinking.

She adjusted the wrap protecting his neck and face from the sun and sand before attending to her own. It was then that he asked, “Was that the one who kept you in servitude all those years?”

“Yes,” Rey said, her fingers brushing his skin.

He nodded once, catching her wrist briefly and releasing it. “Hope that hurt, then.”

Rey gave him a small smile and knew that it was okay.

She sat astride the speeder, Poe getting on behind her with minimal grumbling at not getting to fly it, wrapping his arms around her waist. She kicked the bike into gear and thought it was really too hot for the press of his body against her back, but she somehow couldn’t bring herself to complain about it.

The path to the ships’ graveyard was a familiar one, and one Rey hadn’t expected to make again. Once the general’s spies had tracked the weapon blueprint the Resistance had been searching for to the _Ravager,_ it became an inevitability that Rey would be the one to retrieve it. Why send anyone but a scavenger to, well, scavenge?

At the moment, they appeared to have the advantage, but Rey knew it was only a matter of time before the First Order’s own intelligence brought them here. It was from them that news of the weapon had first reached the general’s ears, weaving through various channels, and Hux would surely consider any weapon dreamed of by the Empire to be his personal due.

She hoped Jakku was long behind her before the First Order arrived.

The _Ravager,_ of course, was just where Rey had last seen it, piloting the _Millennium Falcon_ through it to escape the TIE fighters led to her because of Finn and BB-8. She brought the speeder to rest near the main engine thrusters, where she knew it was easy to get in. Once they were in, of course, finding what they were looking for would be the true challenge. She knew the interior well enough and Finn had told them everything he knew about The First Order’s security measures and onboard data storage, with the assumption it couldn’t be very different from the Empire.

Even so, this was going to be difficult.

Poe took a sip of water and passed the flask to Rey. “I gotta admit, I’m into the idea of seeing you in your old habitat.”

Rey rolled her eyes as she went to store the flask. “You should be more concerned with not slowing me up.”

“Hey, I’m Navy trained, okay? I can handle myself.”

“Yeah, when you’re not too busy watching my butt.”

“It’s a nice butt,” Poe said, his dark eyes warm and cheerful. “I can’t help it if it’s distracting.”

“Just follow me and do what I tell you,” Rey said, and didn’t think he was cute at all.

As they prepared to go inside, a figure stepped out into the bright sunshine, at the wrong angle to see them until he turned. A man, not much taller than Poe, mustached, what skin that was visible weathered and scarred. When he did turn, Rey felt a shiver pulse through her and she wavered on her feet, long-buried memories flashing through her head.

_Mamma’s sick and sleeping, she had too much of the drink Rey’s not allowed to touch. Daddy hasn’t been by in twenty-seven days but then he comes; he hardly even looks at Mamma but he gives Rey his blaster and shows her how to aim it._

_He teaches Rey how to take apart a busted speeder engine and piece it back together; she is too small to fly it but he takes her in his lap once around the village before he leaves. She doesn’t see him again for four months._

_They tell her Mamma is dead but Rey doesn’t understand what they mean; Mamma looks ashen and cold and they burn her. Rey keeps saying Daddy will come but he doesn’t._

_Daddy does come eventually but he doesn’t come to take her away with him. She shouts and cries and kicks him in the shin; he gives her to a nasty old alien who smells funny and pushes her roughly. He takes a purse full of credits and walks away while Rey screams louder and louder._

_No,_ Rey thought. _No._ It couldn’t be.

The man was watching her.

Poe was already talking while Rey stood there, gaping and dumbfounded. He cocked one hand on his hip and didn’t seem to notice that no one was looking at him. “Now, come on, Terex, why’d you have to go and ruin a good thing? I’ve really been enjoying our time apart and I--”

“Daddy?” The word eked its way out of Rey’s throat.

Poe stopped talking, his lips slightly apart as he turned to stare at her. “What?”

“Well,” the man said, still watching her closely. Daddy – Terex – the man. “You’ve got your mother’s face, which was always the only good thing about her, but also her regrettably terrible taste in men. If you tell me you’re doing anything more than palling around with Poe here I think I’ll be sick.”

Rey glanced to Poe long enough to watch him rub his hand over the back of his scarf-wrapped head. “Um,” he said. “Is this a joke? Because I’m kind of getting the impression that you two are… are… And, you know, that’s just way too weird for me to accept.”

Her lightsaber was in her hand before she realized she was reaching for it. Terex was on the ground in seconds, Rey crouched over him, the blade of her lightsaber at his throat.

His gray eyes were laughing. Maybe he thought she wouldn’t do it.

He didn’t know her.

“That,” he said, “that you got from me. Not the Force part, I suppose, hell if I know where that came from, but the rest? That’s all me.”

“You left me with him,” she said, the words gritting out from between her teeth. She couldn’t remember being this full of rage, this emotional, this… this _vulnerable_ since Kylo Ren. “You sold me! Like I was nothing! Like garbage!”

“Well, if you were garbage, I wouldn’t have gotten anything for you, would I? Don’t sell yourself short.”

Rey pressed the lightsaber closer to his throat, close enough that he must have been able to feel the heat almost searing his skin. If she moved, he’d be dead.

 _You left me,_ she thought. _You left me, you left me, and I waited, I kept waiting, but you left me, Daddy, Daddy –_

“Rey,” Poe was saying, so softly, just behind her, his hand curled around her shoulder. “Rey. I know he’s trash and I sure wouldn’t mourn him but you don’t want to do this.”

“I do,” she snarled, and blinked through the angry tears blurring her vision. “I do.”

Terex swallowed convulsively and his eyes weren’t laughing anymore, but he wasn’t afraid, either. She sought out his mind and found a jumble of emotions but the one that stood out surprised her.

Pride.

He was proud of her.

Rey drew back. She extinguished her lightsaber and climbed to her feet, Poe at her back, his fingers brushing her hip.

Terex stood, heaving himself up, touching his throat like he was amazed to find it intact. “Are you fucking him, then? Thought I raised you to know better.”

“I dunno, Terex,” Poe said, cutting himself into the conversation smoothly as if to give Rey a moment to gather herself. “You always seemed pretty keen on me. Looks like she really does take after dad.”

“I really will throw up, I hope you know.”

“It couldn’t make this situation any worse, honestly.”

Rey took a breath, centering herself. Nothing had changed; he was still the man who left and never came back and she was still the woman who no longer needed him. “Talk,” she said to Terex. “Why are you here?”

“Oh, the same reason as you, I suspect.” He waved at the wreckage of the _Ravager_ beside them. “Or weren’t you looking for a prime scavenge?”

“You found it.”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“You found it,” Poe said. “What I don’t get is, what the hell? You’re working for the First Order again? After everything? I thought leaving them in the dirt was what you wanted!”

“Now, Poe, don’t be stupid. You know me better than that. I’m not here for the First Order; I’m here for me.”

“You’re going to sell it.”

“Ah, that’s better. Of course I am. Perhaps I’ll sell it to the First Order; they do have very deep pockets. If your General Organa makes me a better offer than I think she can, perhaps I’ll sell it to her.” Terex lifted his hands into the air. “Who knows? I’m willing to explore my options.”

“You’re disgusting,” Rey said. Somehow it felt good to say it out loud, to acknowledge it.

It wasn’t her that was garbage. It was him. It had always been him.

“Is that any way to speak to your dear old dad?”

“You’re lucky she didn’t put the lightsaber through you,” Poe said. “What’ll it take to get you to give it to us?”

Terex laughed. “I’m truly disappointed. You never used to be so stupid, and this actually used to be fun. You’ve gone and taken all the challenge out of our tête-à-têtes.” His expression hardened. “I’m not giving it to you unless that speeder’s actually stuffed with money.”

Rey could feel the sting of her fingernails as they dug into her palm and made herself relax her fist. “You sold your daughter; why should we expect anything else?”

Shrugging, Terex said, “I’ve always recognized opportunity. Why apologize for it?”

It took some concentration because she didn’t actually know what she was looking for but the small data stick flew out of Terex’s inside pocket and right into Rey’s hand, making a satisfying light thud against her palm. She closed her fist around it while Terex squirmed and sighed and Poe laughed in delight.  

“You were saying?” Rey said, relishing the satisfaction of it more than a little.

“You’re as irritating as he is,” Terex complained. “But, I suppose, that was me, too. You fight dirty and you get what you want.” He was broadcasting pride again, all mixed in with genuine frustration, and Rey didn’t need to poke around in his head to sense it.

 _Good girl,_ he was thinking. _Good girl, blast it._

She wanted to be angry. She wanted to say that she was nothing like him, that she had learned nothing from him, that she had inherited nothing from him.

But what would be the point?

“You can go now,” Rey said. “I don’t need anything else from you.”

No one said anything for a long while, nothing but the late afternoon sun beating down on their heads and the faint swirl of the sand, blown about by the breeze. Rey found herself thinking of the careful marks on the inside of her AT-AT, one for every day, hundreds upon hundreds of them.

She had been so good at waiting.

“You grew up just as I imagined you would,” Terex said finally, his expression impossible to decipher, and Rey found she had no desire to search through his head. “I expect I’ll see you around.”

He walked to his own speeder, hidden enough that Rey and Poe had missed it when they arrived. She watched him go, and for a moment she was that little girl again, crying and screaming, but the moment passed.

The hum of the speeder faded into the distance. A trickle of sweat beaded down Rey’s face and she wiped it away before carefully stowing the data stick into her bag.

She looked at Poe, the silence stretching.

Poe said, “So this explains why you’re such a pain in my ass most of the time.”

Rey stared, and then she punched her fist against his arm. “You’re such a jerk, stars.”

He laughed a little and tugged at the scarf wrapped around her head. “Hey, you’re the one who turned out to be kriffing Terex’s progeny, okay? Maybe I need a minute to get over it.”

“He was exactly as annoying as you said he was,” Rey admitted.

“When I talked about him, did you know then? Did you realize who he was?”

Shaking her head, Rey said, “I suppose it sounds silly but no. I… I buried that so deep, the knowledge that he had left me on purpose, that all my waiting would never bring him back. I must have known that was my name, Rey Terex, but I didn’t want to remember it. Remembering meant I had to remember that he threw me away.”

Poe had that look on his face, that ‘please don’t look, I’m emotionally compromised and I don’t know what to do about it’ look. He swallowed thickly. “Does it help if I remind you that I, uh, sucker punched him? And turned him in for capture? And also that I sort of wish I hadn’t encouraged you not to slice his head off? I should have hit him before we let him go.”

Rey slid her arm around Poe’s waist and leaned into him. “Yes. It helps.”

He rubbed his thumb over her hipbone. “You know you don’t have to be Rey Terex if you don’t want to be. Just because he donated some genetic material to you doesn’t mean you owe him anything, and honestly, you owe him _nothing.”_

“I know. I gave up on him already. Seeing him again doesn’t change that.”

“Hey, you can be Rey Dameron if you like. My dad always wanted more kids.”

Rey blinked at him in surprise, and then deliberately misunderstood. “I’ve never been proposed to before but I have to say, that was the worst proposal I’ve ever had.”

Poe looked horrified, his skin flushing as he pulled away from her, and he stumbled over his words. “No! I didn’t mean it like that! Finn, you know, Finn’s already a Dameron, because he needed a name, and I…” He paused, clearly taking in Rey’s glee. “Okay. I get it. Like I said, I understand where you got the asshole part from now.”

Grinning widely, Rey hugged his waist again. “I think you like the asshole part.”

“Maybe. I relate to it.”

“Clearly.”

“But that doesn’t mean I can’t still be creeped out that your dad is Terex, okay? I might have nightmares. I’ll need a lot of comforting.”

“If you’re having nightmares because I’m related to Terex, then wouldn’t you not--”

“Just go with it,” Poe interrupted. “I’ll need plenty of cuddling. Maybe some other stuff.” He grinned at her.

Rey smiled back, and understood what he was doing.

She might love him, just a little.

“Do you think,” she asked, “do you think I will see him around?”

Poe shrugged, the movement of his shoulders vibrating against her own. “Seems like I can’t ever be rid of him, and looks like you might be as unlucky as I am.”

Rey wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Terex wasn’t her family and he wasn’t her life, but he was her father. He was a criminal out for himself who had never put his daughter ahead of himself, not once, but he had given a tiny girl the skills she would use to survive on a cruel planet where she had no one to look out for her but herself.

Maybe she was like him, or maybe she wasn’t. If she never saw him again she would lose no sleep over it, but if she did?

She supposed that wasn’t worth losing sleep over, either.

“Come on,” Rey said, squeezing her hand around the data stick in her bag. “Let’s get this back to the general.”

Time to go home.


End file.
